Identifying and Advocating Best Practices in the Criminal Justice System. A Texas-Centric Examination of Current Conditions, Reform Initiatives, and Emerging Issues with a Special Emphasis on Capital Punishment.

Abolishing the death penalty in Colorado will get an initial vote in
the state House as debate on the emotional issue begins in the
Legislature.

The House Judiciary Committee will hear testimony on the bill Tuesday.

There are three men on Colorado's death row, but the bill
would not affect them if it becomes law because it can't apply to
current cases. That means the case of the Aurora theater shooting
suspect will also not be affected by the proposal.

One Colorado lawmaker is proposing a countermeasure to put the repeal question to voters.

On Monday afternoon, Rep. Rhonda Fields, D-Aurora,
introduced a measure to have voters decide in 2014 whether to repeal
the death penalty. Last Friday, two House Democrats, Reps. Claire Levy of Boulder, and Jovan Melton
of Aurora, introduced a bill to allow lawmakers to repeal capital
punishment. It will be heard Tuesday before the House Judiciary
Committee.

“The citizens should weigh-in on this,” said Fields. “I don’t personally believe this is up to lawmakers to decide.”

Her son, Javad Marshall-Fields, and his fiancée, Vivian Wolfe, were
gunned down while driving in Aurora in 2005. The two were set to testify
in a pending murder case. Sir Mario Owens and Robert Ray are both on Colorado’s death row for their involvement in the murders.

The House Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hear House Bill 1264 at 1:30 Tuesday.

FOX31 Denver was first to report
that Democrats were introducing the bill last Friday, just as the most
controversial gun control measures received their final votes and headed
to Gov. John Hickenlooper’s desk.

Reps. Claire Levy, D-Boulder, and Jovan Melton, D-Aurora, are the prime sponsors of the bill.

Some Republicans are likely to support the legislation, mostly for religious reasons, FOX31 Denver has confirmed.

“For me, it’s religious conviction. I’m a practicing Catholic and I
understand what the Church teaches on the issue,” said Rep. Kevin
Priola, R-Henderson. “Secondly, if you look at statistics, it’s
arbitrary and capricious and it’s time we look at repealing it.

“It costs about a million dollars a year and it tends to be used mostly on the minority population.”

State lawmakers have introduced a bill that would repeal the death
penalty in Colorado. House Bill 1264 would replace all current death
penalty sentences to life without parole. The House Judiciary Committee
is expected to take up the bill later this week.

State Senator Lucia Guzman, (D) Denver, sponsored the bill in the
Senate. She says the punishment is unevenly applied from courtroom to
courtroom.

"The decisions that are made by DA's across the state vary a great deal," Guzman said.

Furthermore, she believes the lengthy and expensive appeals process have made the death sentence unnecessary.

"It's not fair to the families; they're not able to bring closure in that sense," Guzman said.

However, State Representative Rhonda Fields, (D) Aurora, disagrees.
Two of the three men currently on death row, Robert Ray and Sir Mario
Owens, were convicted of murdering her son in 2005 to keep him from
testifying at a murder trial.

The Colorado Legislature is poised for the debate again. A group of
Democrats last week proposed a bill to repeal capital punishment in
Colorado; and although Democrats are the majority in both houses of the
Legislature, there is no guarantee that they will all line up behind the
bill or that Gov. John Hickenlooper will sign it should it pass.

In
fact, one notable House Democrat, Rep. Rhonda Fields of Aurora, opposes
the repeal and has said publicly that she thinks voters should decide
the issue.

Fields’
son, Javad Marshall-Fields, and his fiancee, Vivian Wolfe, both of them
CSU graduates, were gunned down on an Aurora street in 2005, just days
before they were scheduled to testify in a murder trial. Their
murderers, who I am choosing not to name, also sit on death row.

I
respect Fields’ stance on this issue, but I also see lots of reasons
why Colorado should join the 17 states that have already abolished
capital punishment: the huge cost involved in endless legal proceedings
and appeals; the reality of false convictions and judicial errors or
misconduct; the disproportionate number of people of color who await
execution; the way it sanctions and perpetuates violence; the way the
long delay between the crime and the execution undermines any deterrence
factor; the way it violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of cruel
and unusual punishment; the way it erodes our humanity and our moral
authority.

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The StandDown Texas Project

The StandDown Texas Project was organized in 2000 to advocate a moratorium on executions and a state-sponsored review of Texas' application of the death penalty.
To stand down is to go off duty temporarily, especially to review safety procedures.

Steve Hall

Project Director Steve Hall was chief of staff to the Attorney General of Texas from 1983-1991; he was an administrator of the Texas Resource Center from 1993-1995. He has worked for the U.S. Congress and several Texas legislators. Hall is a former journalist.